From $57 to $9: Is This Stock Dead or the Opportunity of a Decade?

A company builds the only nuclear reactor design in America that regulators have fully approved. Not pending. Not under review. Approved. A genuine head start on every competitor still working through the licensing process.

That same company's stock is down 73% over the past year, trading near $9 after touching $57.

This is NuScale Power, ticker SMR; One of the most closely watched, and most contested, names in the nuclear energy trade right now.

The connection starts with electricity. AI systems run on data centers that need enormous, uninterrupted power; day and night, rain or shine. Solar and wind can't fully deliver that kind of constant supply. Nuclear can.

That's why major technology companies have moved decisively toward nuclear power. Amazon has secured capacity for a Pennsylvania data center. Microsoft is backing the reopening of Three Mile Island. Meta is developing a gigawatt-scale project with the nuclear startup Oklo. The pattern is clear: the technology sector sees reliable, always-on power as the next competitive battleground, and nuclear is central to that strategy.

NuScale wants to be a supplier for that future; building smaller, factory-assembled reactors instead of the sprawling, decade-long projects nuclear power once required.

NuScale holds a real structural advantage: it is the only small modular reactor developer with full design certification from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Every rival is still working through that process.

The company has also landed a significant anchor agreement. Its commercialization partner, ENTRA1 Energy, signed a deal to bring up to six gigawatts of NuScale reactors to the Tennessee Valley Authority; the largest small modular reactor deployment plan in U.S. history. Financially, NuScale is well-capitalized for a pre-revenue company, holding roughly $890 million in cash and short-term investments with no debt, giving it time to reach commercial operation without an immediate need to raise capital.

The concern is that revenue has not materialized. In the first quarter of 2026, NuScale reported just $565,000 in revenue (down sharply from $13.4 million a year earlier). In that same quarter, the company burned through $314.7 million in cash, driven largely by a single, substantial payment to ENTRA1.

ENTRA1 itself has become a source of real controversy. Shareholder lawsuits allege that NuScale failed to disclose that ENTRA1 (the partner entrusted with hundreds of millions of dollars and the company's entire commercialization strategy) had no prior track record of building or operating nuclear projects. When this came to light last November, the stock fell sharply and has largely failed to recover since.

Compounding the concern, Fluor, a longtime strategic partner, has fully exited its stake in NuScale, selling roughly 40 million shares worth an estimated $2.4 billion over recent months. An experienced partner stepping away entirely is the kind of signal serious investors tend to take note of.

The demand story behind NuScale is genuine. AI and data centers do need more reliable power, and nuclear is a credible part of that answer. But NuScale's reactors are not expected to generate meaningful revenue until the early 2030s, meaning today's stock price reflects a future that remains several years out, while current financial results tell a much more difficult story. This divide explains why analyst opinions remain so split, with price targets ranging from roughly $7 to over $17.

NuScale holds the strongest regulatory position in the small modular reactor race, but that advantage hasn't yet translated into revenue, and the ENTRA1 controversy has raised legitimate questions about how the company is executing its strategy.

However, we believe this could still become one of the biggest energy trades of the decade. If SMRs emerge as a major solution to rising global electricity demand, AI-driven power consumption and the need for reliable low-carbon energy, NuScale could be sitting at the centre of a generational shift. That does not make it a guaranteed winner — but the scale of the opportunity is simply too significant to ignore. We are monitoring it very closely.

Until next time. Happy Weekend!

— The UE Market Letter Team 👁️‍🗨️

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